Leg 3 has only been active for 4 days (including today) and already they've seen some pretty fantastic invertebrates!

1. This awesome blue comb jelly.

On Sunday (Aug 30th), the ROV was in relatively shallow water and spotted this gorgeous blue/purple comb jelly (ctenophore) at about 450 m off South Point, Hawaii (big island). George Matsumoto of MBARI has described it as Euplokamis-like..

Lasers below are 10.0 cm apart..so it was a decent sized beast...

2. Was that a NEW STARFISH?
So, this happened only Monday.. The ROV was exploring McCall Seamount at around 2700 meters and came upon this beast..

So, the amazing thing about this is, I didn't recognize it! If you wanted to learn what it was like to "discover" new species along with the scientists?? THIS IS WHAT THAT IS LIKE.

Unfortunately, they couldn't collect it for various reasons..but I'm hopeful an example will turn up so I can eventually confirm its status and learn more about it... and eventually give it a name...

But as you can see its quite soft and its body sort of flutters in the current!

The Hawaiian islands region has many, MANY corallivorous starfish species. I've discussed a few of them here. Its interesting to see how much more regularly we are observing predation by sea stars (mostly Hippasteria muscipula but several species are observed) on these octocoral colonies.

This deep-sea hermit crab has a commensal sea anemone instead of a shell!

Deep Sea balanoid barnacles! at 2700 meters!

5. More orange echinoderms than you can throw a stick at!

This cool biscuit star: Sphaeriodiscus ammophilus

Based on a tip by ophiuroid expert Sabine Stohr, this ophiacanthid brittle star is likely Ophioplinthaca!

and another nice shot of Hippasteria muscipula which I described only last year (here) What's interesting about it? the disk is HUGELY swollen with water! A big difference from seeing them preserved in a bucket!!!

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About Me

I pursue starfish related adventure around the world with a critical eye and an appreciation for weirdness.
Support has been courtesy of the National Science Foundation but the views and opinions presented herein are mine and do not reflect the opinions of them or any affiliated institutions.
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